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88 Octane Gas in Maverick Hybrid?

FordDiehard

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From Wikipedia

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There are two stations near me which also sell non-Ethanol gas. The regular unleaded at one station is 87 and the other (a WaWa) is 89. I have been using non-Ethanol in my present car for the past year and average about 4 mpg better than unleaded with ethanol. Of course, it also costs about $.50 more per gallon, so it probably doesn't really pay for itself.
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GPSMan

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Ethanol vs. Gas
They have different energy content per gallon. There's really no way around it, no matter how you tune it, ethanol will provide fewer miles per gallon. That does not make it worse. It is cleaner burning, cleaner for the air, and cleaner for your engine's internals.

It just needs to be priced fairly and usually it isn't. I put it in my Escape Hybrid when it was sold for 85 cents per gallon at flex-fuel grand openings. That's a win at 85 cents a gallon when gas was about $3.00 to $3.50 at the time.

The 15% is an arbitrary number.
So I tried a tank of 25%. Escape ran great. Then I tried 40%. Escape ran great. Then tried 50%. Escape ran great. Check engine light came on. Code "Fuel trim high". Nothing wrong with the car, the computer just flagged "hey, I'm using way more fuel so 'check engine'. I used an ODBII reader to check the fuel trim setting, it was not on the peg so kept going.

70% ethanol. Hybrid Escape ran fine. Of course about 25% fewer MPG at this point, but I was paying 85 cents. Also learning what the true range of a stock Ford I4 engine was.

At full E85 it did run a little rough especially at idle. But it ran. It got me where I wanted to go. I had the whole suite of diagnostics and nothing was harmed in any way.

Later I bought a computer box with a trim screw where I could add more fuel injector pulse manually. If the stock ECU said inject "x" amount of fuel, the box would take that value and add "y" to it. X + Y was delivered to the engine and the engine ran great and no check engine lights after this because the car ECU didn't even "know"' it was running on ethanol.

I did that for the 6 or so years I lived and worked in the corn belt. Then I moved to CA and took the escape with me and ethanol was hard to find and expensive. Stopped using it due to lack of availability.

The only thing I ever changed on the escape was oil and tires in 235,000 miles.

First 25% of life nothing more than E10.
Next 25% of miles, all the experimenting with high ethanol blends.
Last 50% of miles, nothing more than E10.
 

chuckles

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As @jsus posted in from the owner's manual, ethanol percentages greater than 15% (such as E85) are not recommended and can void warranty. That alone would be enough for most of us to follow.

This article explains one reason why. Paraphrasing, while ethanol itself may not be harmful, it can harbor a bacteria (acetobactor*) that produces acid (acetic acid; i.e. vinegar) that is harmful. Increasing the amount of ethanol in your tank, or allowing it to age without frequent refilling can increase the amount of acid created. Thus, increasing the possibility of damage to fuel and emission related components. This aging of ethanol fuel has not been discussed and is important.

Of course an acid can cause corrosion if materials aren't made resistant to it. Anyone want to ask if the low cost Maverick is using putting expense into resistant materials throughout the fuel and exhaust systems?

Best of luck to all, and may your Mavs live a long and happy life.

* There are some refereed journal articles publically available discussing the phenomena in more detail. Here is one.
 

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LSchicago

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I belive the less alcohol the better. Just wish I could get pure gas around here in NJ.
For a general transportation vehicle this is true. Hi performance cars really benefit from E85, especially when boosted. a 2.0 EB might see a nice power bump from adding an E85 tune to enable E85 fuel. Even more so if it has a higher flowing exhaust, better intercooler, bigger turbo, etc. A hybrid Maverick won't see any benefit from running higher alcohol content. Any slight power increase will be offset by lower fuel economy.
 

AutobahnSHO

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Ethanol can eat up certain rubbers/ plastics. About 15yrs ago the big US manufacturers made a big deal of "Flex Fuel" vehicles- basically they were safe to use with more ethanol than the max 10% allowed in most grades of gasoline. I'm not sure if more vehicles are safer for ethanol now? (Big corn has a huge lobbying power in Congress).

I fueled up in 2014 in (Nebraska? Indiana?) and they had two Grade 8# (89?) fuels on the same pump besides the 91. One was much cheaper and had more ethanol.
 

NeedForSteve

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Ethanol is not junk.
Ethanol is not corrosive.
Ethanol can go in your body.
Ethanol is vodka.

Try putting gasoline in your body (no don't) just imagine the difference in "corrosion" and "poison".

Ethanol is a small, simple, clean molecule that when burned produces two clean molecules: water and carbon dioxide, the same "junk" you just exhaled.

If gasoline didn't exist (and one day it will run out) you'd ALL be calling ethanol a godsend.

Ethanol puts the premium in "premium".
You've all be duped. Brainwashed by big oil companies.
Most of this is true, with some caveats;

1. Agreed, Ethanol is not junk
2. Ethanol has hygroscopic properties and therefore can hold moisture in suspension close to or in contact with materials that can corrode or degrade due to moisture exposure. This is where Ethanol gets it's "corrosive" reputation and it's important to note this.
3. I mean yea, a lot of things can "go in your body", but there's a reason alcohol causes inebriating effects and it's not because it's good for you.
4: Yep

When burned COMPLETELY. There isn't a single automotive engine on the planet (that I know of) that burns fuel at 100% efficiency. The "cleaner burn" of Ethanol was a selling point when it was introduced, and it's readily available knowledge now that Ethanol doesn't always burn "cleaner", it just burns "differently". There are certain things it doesn't emit because it doesn't contain them, but there are things it does emit that gasoline doesn't, and the research on those chemicals is ongoing.

Ethanol does not make "premium" fuel, higher concentrations of octane and additives does.


Three short things:

1) the truck, as every modern vehicle adjusts to any octane gas. The adjustment time is minutes to hours. Not great to change it up and experiment tank after tank. You can, but performance (mostly MPG) will suffer during the adjustment period.

2) octane is a rating based upon a behavior. Octane is not an ingredient.

3) ethanol is an ingredient (among others) that raises octane (it's 115) which is why it is literally race fuel. Turbocharged engines benefit from ethanol. It is (well can be) a power booster but at the cost of MPG

I won't tell you to use 85 octane in Denver and above. And probably best not to if you are visiting or just "passing through". But anyone who lives there and uses it consistently will be fine. Been there. Done that. As have millions of drivers for decades. There is nothing "unique" about the Maverick to prohibit this.
1. The maverick, to my knowledge, has neither a Flex Fuel sensor or any FFV data in it's factory PCM program. Therefore, it can only "adjust" to lower octane fuel by knocking until the PCM pulls timing and adjusts Dynamic compression via VCT.
2. "Octane Rating" is a rating based on performance compared to an Iso-octane/heptane mixture. "Octane" is a hydrocarbon ingredient of gasoline.
3. If the engine is tuned for it. and has enough injector to cover the additional need. and has a high enough dynamic CP to take advantage of the higher octane rating.
 

SLINGSHOT

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At one time, I worked at a place that could build C-Stores from a bare lot to turn-key. We also sol and serviced everything for gas stations. That was around the time that crap gas came into being. Station owners would bring in their $10 nozzles and want to know why they didn't work anymore. The insides looked like they had termites. So, we sold them $50 nozzles that were compatible with alcohol.
Unless a system is made to use alky, it will corrode and make a mess.
 
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r100gs91

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E0 gets me 8-10% better mpg.
 

GPSMan

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For a general transportation vehicle this is true. Hi performance cars really benefit from E85, especially when boosted. a 2.0 EB might see a nice power bump from adding an E85 tune to enable E85 fuel. Even more so if it has a higher flowing exhaust, better intercooler, bigger turbo, etc. A hybrid Maverick won't see any benefit from running higher alcohol content. Any slight power increase will be offset by lower fuel economy.
Totally agree. No benefit to using it.
 

GPSMan

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For the numb nuts out there:

Ethanol PREVENTS fuel / water separation. Ethanol DRIES OUT your tank.

Look it up. Look up brand names such as "HEET" fuel additives. Fuel dehydrators are alcohol. Often methanol to keep people from drinking it. But ethanol works as well.

Buy 10 gallons of E10.
You're going to get about 1 gallon of ethanol homogeneously mixed.

That's 1 gallon of 200 proof alcohol.
Add a few drops of water from condensation or atmosphere, whatever you'd like, now you'll have a gallon of 199.5 proof homogeneously mixed throughout your tank. Harmless.
No separation. Ask any chemist.

It's not going to "separate" until about 180 proof. (Some say as high as 186 but the separation point is also temperature dependent.)

180 proof is 10% water.

10% of a gallon is 12.8 ounces. How careless do you have to be to get 12.8 ounces of water in your tank this fill up?
Not going to happen to me.

Let's say a "prankster" added a quart of water to your tank. What will happen?

The water will combine with the ethanol, you will now have about 1.3 gallons of 150 proof alcohol and given time undisturbed (overnight) the 150 proof ethanol will settle to the bottom and pure gas will float to the top.

So yes, in a world ruled by numb nuts, alcohol can separate in your tank.
But not water.
But you need to add a ridiculous amount of water. Not what will happen by accident or by "mother nature".

150 proof will still burn. Though roughly, and MPG will be much lower. Still not a disaster.
 
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Jimd57

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Um, there is no such thing as 88 octane or E88. There is 87 octane which is regular gas and fine .
There is E85 which is 85% alcohol and used ONLY in flex fuel vehicles and is NOT ok to use.

I strongly suggest you both read your owner's manual in detail and spend some time on wikipedia or something educating yourself about gasoline.
We have a station called Sheetz that sells the E88 that he's talking about right or wrong that's what they call it and market it as! They have sales on it for a 1.99 a gallon on occasion.
 

GPSMan

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We have a station called Sheetz that sells the E88 that he's talking about right or wrong that's what they call it and market it as! They have sales on it for a 1.99 a gallon on occasion.
Ummm.... a photo would be helpful.

Wouldn't be the first time a retailer was wrong. In the early days of E85 it was kind of a free for all. I saw lots of pumps with stickers that said "contains minimum 85% ethanol" when the correct sticker should say "contains maximum 85% ethanol."
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